Topology-changing first order phase transition and the dynamics of flavor
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, wUniversity of Southern California, Los Angeles, California 90089-0484 (United States)
In studying the dynamics of large N{sub c}, SU(N{sub c}) gauge theory at finite temperature with fundamental quark flavors in the quenched approximation, we observe a first order phase transition. A quark condensate forms at finite quark mass, and the value of the condensate varies smoothly with the quark mass for generic regions in parameter space. At a particular value of the quark mass, there is a finite discontinuity in the condensate's vacuum expectation value, corresponding to a first order phase transition. We study the gauge theory via its string dual formulation using the AdS/CFT conjecture, the string dual being the near-horizon geometry of N{sub c} D3-branes at finite temperature, AdS{sub 5}-SchwarzschildxS{sup 5}, probed by a D7-brane. The D7-brane has topology R{sup 4}xS{sup 3}xS{sup 1} and allowed solutions correspond to either the S{sup 3} or the S{sup 1} shrinking away in the interior of the geometry. The phase transition represents a jump between branches of solutions having these two distinct D-brane topologies. The transition also appears in the meson spectrum.
- OSTI ID:
- 21249885
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Vol. 77, Issue 6; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.77.066004; (c) 2008 The American Physical Society; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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